"Hey! What kind of deviloid's tricks are these? Why are you doing this in front of everyone?" a stern female voice called out from the crowd.

  The lovers didn't immediately realize they were being addressed until a woman in the black witch's uniform of the Chancellery blocked their path. The lowest rank, but still infinitely higher than an unblessed and a man.

  "We are just walking, mistress," Viya answered.

  Ortahn tensed so much that she flinched from his grip, but didn't look away from the witch. There was an inappropriate defiance in Viya's voice, an echo of the argument with the nectarium owner. That clash had also been inappropriate, but to a far lesser degree than arguing with a representative of the power. Yet Viya was fired up from it.

  "Don't pretend to be a man, unblessed," the witch jabbed a finger at the seal on Viya's shoulder. "Do you know what this means?"

  As if an unblessed could be unaware of this detail of her existence. Viya jerked her arm, instinctively trying to cover the brand, but that was illegal. Ortahn tightened his grip on her wrist, just in case.

  "I know, mistress," Viya replied, her tone conveying anything but "mistress".

  "Well, what does it mean, unblessed?" the witch demanded complete humiliation, jutting her chin out.

  "It means I was born without the gift of magic," Viya said slowly and coldly, but Ortahn felt her fingers dig into his arm until they drew blood. "This seal prevents me from having children, so I do not bear more magicless women."

  "Basti, stop it," another witch of the same rank approached them, swaying slightly and smelling of floral wine. "Today is a day of triumph! The Virion Metacruiser at the Antares Gates has been turned to dust. The blockade on our long-suffering colony has been lifted. Everyone should be celebrating!"

  "So, if we keep winning every day, we should let the lower to be outrageous?" Basti trow back at her friend. Then she turned back to Viya. "So what, in the name of the Nephilims," (she cast a quick glance upwards to where they hovered), "are you hoping for? What is the point of your union?" Basti peered at the seal of barrenness. "Well, well, the Underground Tree clan. A noble house, and yet you've stooped to brutish pleasures. Your womb has been nullified, but you still find a way to fill it?" The witch granted Ortahn only a fleeting, contemptuous glance, as if he were an instrument of sin.

  "Oh, what nasty things you say, Basti," the other witch protested, but her voice held more amusement than condemnation.

  "Just for comfort, mistress," Viya answered calmly, but inside her, Ortahn heard a storm, and the hairs on his arms stood on end.

  "Just for comfort! Ghi, did you hear that?" Basti turned to her friend, not to see her, but to mark the address. "And what if some unblessed, or even a blessed, sees you and decides to waste time on men for reasons other than procreation? What if every woman gets distracted by men instead of engaging in governance, art, magic, or war? The likes of you corrupt minds. To think that a man is for pleasure—it's a vice!"

  "But we ourselves go to waste time with men..." Ghi marveled drunkenly.

  "We don't change the world, mistress," said Viya, "but we make it tolerable for each other."

  Those words were a fatal mistake.

  "Ah, so without your beastly acts, our world, arranged by the Chancellery, is intolerable?" Basti exploded with fury. "Perhaps you, the rejected one, will also teach the Great Matrix how things ought to be done?"

  "Basti..." Her friend, frightened, took her by the arm, trying to pull her away.

  Ortahn froze in horror, but Viya looked at the witch with a calm, clear gaze. It was the last drop that overflowed the witch's vessel of patience.

  Basti threw up her hand, and the pavement cracked beneath the lovers' feet. From the cracks, amidst clouds of stone dust, beautiful, giant white roses grew, entwining the pair. Thorns the size of a finger plunged into their bodies. Ortahn cried out, and Viya gave a wet gurgle. The buds began to turn crimson.

  "Basti!" Ghi shrieked in panic, instantly sobered.

  Every struggle caused excruciating, sharp pain, but Ortahn thrashed as if possessed by a demon. A red mist clouded his vision, and he could only see the figure of his beloved, crushed by the thorny stems. The roses on her bloomed wide, almost concealing her. She seemed so small and fragile. Ortahn felt something new, something alien, being born inside him. It filled him from head to toe. A whisper of pure, uncontrolled power.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The rose stems snapped and fell away. Viya and Ortahn collapsed onto the blood-soaked pavement. Ghi had canceled the spell, flicking her hand. She dragged her friend away, whispering furiously in her ear. Then she glanced over her shoulder and threw at the bleeding pair, "Sorry!"

  Ortahn, ignoring his own gushing blood, embraced Viya. She lay limp, blood seeping from countless wounds, mixing with the plant sap. The most terrible wound gaped at her neck, pulsing with a scarlet fountain. Ortahn tried to stanch it with his palm, drenching the girl with his own blood and tears. With a weak hand, she tried to touch his face, whispering something, trying to smile.

  He lifted her easily into his arms (at least now the difference in their builds was useful) and ran, stumbling, across the trembling pavement, crying for help. Blood flowed down his arms, splashing with every step; Viya was getting lighter and lighter. Her face grew closer, and he finally heard the single word she was whispering, over and over: "Live."

  "Help!" he cried out to the world.

  But the people of the world shrank away. Homunculi indifferently walked around them, women turned away, not wanting to get involved, or were frightened, or couldn't help. One woman, with a dead look in her eyes, silently pointed to the brand on her own shoulder. Above the crowd, the light-weave was broadcasting joyous images of the victory at the Antares Gates, forming the destroyed enemy fleet and cosmic maps from its bright lines.

  "Mistress, I beg you...!" Ortahn, in a frenzy, threw himself towards a young, mid-ranking mage who was holding her young daughter's hand.

  The little girl took a step forward, reaching out her hands. "Mama, she's dying..."

  "Hush!" The mother yanked her sharply aside and trow Ortahn a look of boundless disgust.

  He appealed to men as well, but they only folded their hands in signs of powerlessness or amazement, as if to say, "Why are you asking us?" In his desperation, he would have appealed to Procyron himself, the demon of star-dusted darkness.

  A shadow fell over them. Ortahn, blinded by tears and despair, at first thought a living tower was looming over them. But it was a tall woman. Her hat reached far into the sky, blocking out Solara's light, and on it shone the entire map of Eden's hundred stellar colonies. The woman's dress was made of black, interwoven bands that flowed freely from her waist and sleeves down to the very pavement. The Ministeress of the Outer Contour, the highest rank—"Overlordess."

  In her hand, she held a bouquet of leashes, on which she led small, reptilian homunculi. She herself was a reptile with pink scales and a blunt snout, studded in all directions with needle-like teeth. Reptiles were this season's fashion. Not a single muscle twitched on that blunt-snouted face as she gazed down at the man with the dying woman in his arms.

  "Overlordess... please..." The words stuck in Ortahn's throat, turning into hoarse sobs. "Save her. In the name of the celebration! I'll do anything. Anything you say."

  "Cattle, have you forgotten your place?" Her voice was hoarse and deliberately slow, and her mouth stretched wide, revealing even more dangerous little teeth.

  "What, Overlordess?" Ortahn understood the words, but the "smile" and the unnaturally benevolent tone in her voice confused him.

  The Ministeress leaned down so low that her shadow completely covered them, robbing them of all celestial light.

  "I said: did you mistake me, a superior, for your breeding female?" she purred in a sweet, almost intimate voice.

  "No, Overlordess... But Viya... she... she..." Fear for his beloved overcame everything, and Ortahn continued to speak to the Supreme Being as if she were a common mistress.

  "Then why did you, worthless thing, address me directly?" In the blink of an eye, all the feigned kindness vanished from the Overlordess' voice. Ortahn felt the icy chill of her words on his skin. "You clearly mistook me for your breeding mat." The Ministeress returned her torso to its dominant position in the air and extended her hand towards Viya. "Don't you worry, cattle. I will relieve her of her suffering, and you of your foolish hopes."

  Viya erupted in a blinding white flame, like a sacrificial ward. Ortahn screamed but continued to hold her, even as the fire engulfed his hands. In a single heartbeat, nothing was left of his beloved but a handful of ash on his palms and a final "Live," carried away by the wind.

  Something important inside Ortahn snapped, and he collapsed to his knees. The Overlordess moved her hand with its splayed fingers towards him but stopped, noticing something strange. The air around the man was shimmering and distorting, like the air above a hot stone. As if from summer heat, but it was currently spring. The passing lines of light bent, forming an invisible dome around him.

  "Curiou—" the Ministeress began, but she was rudely interrupted by Ortahn's furious roar and a shove of air that emanated from him.

  Without ceasing his scream (the light-weave trembled, resonating with it), he lunged at Viya's murderer, clutching a piece of broken pavement that was self-forgetful sharpening itself into a crude stone blade. The Overlordess waved her hand with lightning speed, crooking her fingers into a curse. Blood gushed from Ortahn's eyes and mouth; he flew backward, hit the pavement, gouged a furrow in it, and fell silent.

  The Ministeress looked around. The passersby, who had frozen at the sight of the scene, instantly remembered their urgent business and scattered to attend to it. One of her homunculi tilted its head back, arching its body, and stared up at its upside-down owner.

  "Of course, Viselpon. I saw it too. He is a male mage. Curious... Sporadic telekinesis and an aetheric disturbance. Primitive and wild, but... protocol dictates that the anomaly be studied." The Overlordess glanced around once more and commanded those witnesses who were too slow or foolish: "Take him to the School of Controlled and Assertive Restraint' for men. Let's see what we can squeeze out of him."

  And the Ministeress of the Outer Contour turned and walked away, confident that her order would be carried out.